"Spring
Song" from _Proserpine_, the cantata that a dozen years before had made
its young composer famous in a night. Everett had heard that air on
guitars in Old Mexico, on mandolins at college glees, on cottage organs
in New England hamlets, and only two weeks ago he had heard it played on
sleighbells at a variety theater in Denver. There was literally no way
of escaping his brother's precocity. Adriance could live on the other
side of the Atlantic, where his youthful indiscretions were forgotten in
his mature achievements, but his brother had never been able to outrun
_Proserpine_, and here he found it again in the Colorado sand hills. Not
that Everett was exactly ashamed of _Proserpine_; only a man of genius
could have written it, but it was the sort of thing that a man of genius
outgrows as soon as he can.

Everett unbent a trifle and smiled at his neighbor across the aisle.
Immediately the large man rose and, coming over, dropped into the seat
facing Hilgarde, extending his card.

"Dusty ride, isn't it? I don't mind it myself; I'm used to it. Born and
bred in de briar patch, like Br'er Rabbit. I've been trying to place you
for a long time; I think I must have met you before."

"Thank you," said Everett, taking the card; "my name is Hilgarde. You've
probably met my brother, Adriance; people often mistake me for him."

The traveling man brought his hand down upon his knee with such
vehemence that the solitaire blazed.

"So I was right after all, and if you're not Adriance Hilgarde, you're
his double. I thought I couldn't be mistaken. Seen him? Well, I guess!
I never missed one of his recitals at the Auditorium, and he played
the piano score of _Proserpine_ through to us once at the Chicago Press
Club. I used to be on the _Commercial_ there before I _146_ began
to travel for the publishing department of the concern. So you're
Hilgarde's brother, and here I've run into you at the jumping-off place.
Sounds like a newspaper yarn, doesn't it?"

The traveling man laughed and offered Everett a cigar, and plied him
with questions on the only subject that people ever seemed to care to
talk to Everett about. At length the salesman and the two girls alighted
at a Colorado way station, and Everett went on to Cheyenne alone.

The train pulled into Cheyenne at nine o'clock, late by a matter of four
hours or so; but no one seemed particularly concerned at its tardiness
except the station agent, who grumbled at being kept in